Bad Examples

There was a spike in sexual assaults in the military last year, according to a new Pentagon study that estimated 7,000 more sexual assaults in 2012 than the year before. The majority of these cases were unreported, as the military only recorded 3,374 reports of assault in 2012, compared to the 26,000 the Pentagon study estimated. The study was published just two days after the Air Force officer responsible for promoting sexual-assault prevention was himself charged with sexual battery.

War-Zone Equality

Women in combat. Those once were fighting words, fodder for the culture wars. Now it’s an idea whose time has come. With unanimous support from the Joint Chiefs, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will announce at a press conference Thursday at the Pentagon that he is ordering the ban lifted against women serving in combat positions.

“This is a landmark shift in the U.S. military, a paradigm shift,” says a senior defense official, “because we are now in theory, potentially, opening up every single position in the U.S. military to women.” Not tomorrow, he cautions, but by Jan. 1, 2016, with the onus on the services to implement the change, or to justify to the secretary why they can’t—a shift in the burden of proof that should hasten the transition.